Commodore James was greatly astonished at the easy success which he had gained. The extraordinary cessation of fire from the sea face, and the sound of artillery within the walls, had convinced him that a mutiny among the garrison must have taken place; but upon entering the fort he was surprised, indeed, at being received with a hearty English cheer, from a little body of men on the summit of an interior work. The gate of this was at once thrown open, and Charlie, followed by his party, advanced towards the commodore.
"I am Captain Marryat, sir, of the Company's service in Madras; and was captured three months ago by these pirates. When you attacked the place, yesterday, I arranged to effect a small diversion; and with the assistance of these five native officers, of my soldier servant, here, and these ten men of the merchant service, we have, I hope, been able to do so. The native officers disabled the greater portion of the guns, during the night; and when you opened fire this morning we seized this inner work, which is also the magazine, and opened fire upon the rear of the sea defences. By dint of our guns, and of menaces to blow up the place if they assaulted it, we kept them at bay until their flag was hauled down."
"Then, sir," Commodore James said, warmly; "I have to thank you, most heartily, for the assistance you have given. In fact, it is you who have captured the fortress. I was by no means prepared to find it so strong; and, indeed, had come to the conclusion, last night, that the force at my command was wholly insufficient for its capture. Fortunately, I determined to try the effect of another day's fire. But, had it not been for you, this would assuredly have been as ineffectual as the first. You have, indeed, performed a most gallant action; and I shall have great pleasure in reporting your conduct to the authorities at home."
The sailors had now landed in considerable force. The garrison were disarmed, and taken as prisoners on board the ships. Very large quantities of powder were found, stored up, and strong parties at once began to form mines, for the blowing up of the fortifications.
This was a labour of some days. When they were completed and charged, a series of tremendous explosions took place. Many of the bastions were completely blown to pieces. In others, the walls were shattered.
The prisoners were again landed, and set to work, aided by the sailors. The great stones, which composed the walls, were toppled over the steep faces of the rock on which the fort stood; and, at the end of a fortnight, the pirate hold of Suwarndrug, which had so long been the terror of the Indian Seas, had disappeared.
The fleet returned to Bombay; for it was, evidently, wholly insufficient to attempt an assault on Gheriah; defended, as that place would be, by the whole pirate fleet; which had, even without the assistance of its guns, proved itself a match for a squadron double the strength of that under the command of Commodore James.
The rejoicings at Bombay were immense, for enormous damage had been inflicted on the commerce of that place, by this pirate hold, situated but eighty miles from the port. Commodore James and his officers were feted, and Charlie Marryat had his full share of honor; the gallant sailor, everywhere, assigning to him the credit of its capture.
Charlie would now have sailed, at once, for Madras; but the authorities wished him to remain, as Clive was shortly expected to arrive, with a considerable force, which was destined to act against the French at Hyderabad. The influence of Bussy, with the nizam, rendered this important province little better than a French possession; and the territory of our rivals, upon the seacoast, had been immensely increased by the grant of the five districts, known as the Northern Sirdars, to Bussy.
It was all that the English could do to hold their own, around Madras; and it was out of the question for them to think of attempting, single handed, to dislodge Bussy from Hyderabad. Between the nizam, however, and the Peishwar of the Deccan, there was a longstanding feud; and the Company had proposed, to this prince, to aid him with a strong English force, in an attack upon Hyderabad.
Colonel Scott had, in the first place, been sent out to command this expedition; but when Clive, wearied with two years' life of inactivity in England, applied to be appointed to active service, the directors at once appointed him governor of Fort Saint David, and obtained for him the rank of lieutenant colonel in the royal army. They directed him to sail at once for Bombay, with three companies of the Royal Artillery, each a hundred strong, and three hundred infantry recruits. Upon his arrival there, he was to give Colonel Scott any assistance he required. That officer, however, had died before Clive arrived.
Upon reaching Bombay, Clive found that events had occurred, in the south, which would prevent the intended expedition from taking place. The French government had suddenly recalled Dupleix, the great man whose talent and statesmanship had sustained their cause. On his return to France, instead of treating him with honor for the work he had done for them, they even refused to repay him the large sums which he had advanced, from his private fortune, to carry on the struggle against the English; and Dupleix died in poverty and obscurity.
In his place, the French governor had sent out a man by the name of Godchen, who was weak and wholly destitute of ability. At the time of his arrival the English were hardly pressed, and a strong French fleet and force were expected on the coast. When, however, Mr. Saunders proposed to him a treaty of neutrality between the Indian possessions of the two powers, he at once accepted it; and thus threw away all the advantages, which Dupleix had struggled so hard to obtain. The result of this treaty, however, was that the English were unable to carry out their proposed alliance, with the peishwar, against the nizam and Bussy.
Upon Clive's arrival, Charlie at once reported himself to him. For a time, however, no active duty was assigned to him, as it was uncertain what steps would now be taken. Finally it was resolved that, taking advantage of the presence of Clive and his troops, and of a squadron which had arrived under Admiral Watson, the work commenced by Commodore James should be completed, by the capture of Gheriah and the entire destruction of the pirate power.
The peishwar had already asked them to aid him in his attack upon Angria, and Commodore James was now sent, with the Protector and two other ships, to reconnoitre Gheriah, which no Englishman then living had seen. The natives described it as of enormous strength, and it was believed that it was an Eastern Gibraltar.
Commodore James found the enemy's fleet at anchor in the harbour. Notwithstanding this, he sailed in until within cannon shot, and so completely were the enemy cowed and demoralized, by the loss of Suwarndrug, that they did not venture out to attack him.
After ascertaining the position and character of the defences, he returned, at the end of December, to Bombay; and reported that, while exceedingly strong, the place was by no means impregnable. The Mahratta army, under the command of Ramajee Punt, marched to blockade the place on the land side; and on the 11th of February, 1756, the fleet, consisting of four ships of the line, of seventy, sixty-four, sixty, and fifty guns; a frigate of forty-four, and three of twenty; a native ship called a grab, of twelve guns; and five mortar ships, arrived before the place. Besides the seamen, the fleet had on board a battalion of eight hundred Europeans and a thousand Sepoys.
The fortress of Gheriah was situated on a promontory of rock, a mile and a quarter broad; lying about a mile up a large harbour, forming the mouth of a river. The promontory projects to the southwest, on the right of the harbour on entering; and rises sheer from the water in perpendicular rocks, fifty feet high. On this stood the fortifications. These consisted of two lines of walls, with round towers, the inner wall rising several feet above the outer.
The promontory was joined to the land by a sandy slip, beyond which the town stood. On this neck of land, between the promontory and the town, were the docks and slips on which the pirate vessels were built or repaired; and ten of these, among which was the Derby, which they had captured from the Company, lay moored side by side, close by the docks, when the fleet arrived off the place.
Charlie Marryat had been sent, by Clive, as commissioner with the Mahratta army. A party of Mahratta horsemen came down to Bombay to escort him to Chaule, at which place the Mahratta army were assembled for their march. He was accompanied by Tim and Hossein, who were of course, like him, on horseback.
A long day's ride took them to their first halting place, a few miles from the foot of a splendid range of hills, which rise like a wall from the low land, for a vast distance along the coast. At the top of these hills--called in India, ghauts--lay the plateau of the Deccan, sloping gradually away to the Ganges, hundreds of miles to the east.
"Are we going to climb up to top of them mountains, your honor?"
"No, Tim, fortunately for our horses. We shall skirt their foot, for a hundred and fifty miles, till we get behind Gheriah."
"You wouldn't think that a horse could climb them," Tim said. "They look as steep as the side of a house."
"In many places they are, Tim, but you see there are breaks in them. At some points, either from the force of streams, or from the weather, the rocks have crumbled away; and the great slopes, which everywhere extend halfway up, reach the top. Zigzag paths are cut in these, which can be travelled by horses and pack animals.
"There must be quantities of game," Charlie said to the leader of the escort, "on the mountain sides."
"Quantities?" the Mahratta said. "Tigers and bears swarm there, and are such a scourge that there are no villages within miles of the foot of the hills. Even on the plateau above, the villages are few and scarce near the edge, so great is the damage done by wild beasts.
"But that is not all. There are numerous bands of Dacoits, who set the authority of the peishwar at defiance, plunder travellers and merchants going up and down, make raids into the Deccan, and plunder the low land nearly up to the gates of Bombay. Numerous expeditions have been sent against them, but the Dacoits know every foot of the hills. They have numerous, impregnable strongholds on the rocks; which you can see rising sheer up hundreds of feet, from among the woods on the slopes; and can, if pressed, shift their quarters, and move fifty miles away among the trees, while the troops are, in vain, searching for them."
"I suppose there is no chance of their attacking us," Charlie said.
"The Dacoit never fights if he can help it, and then only when driven into a corner, or when there appears a chance of very large plunder. He will always leave a strong party of armed men, from whom nothing but hard blows is to be got, in peace."
The journey occupied five days, and was most enjoyable. The officer of the escort, as the peishwar's agent, would have requisitioned provisions at each of the villages; but Charlie insisted, under one pretence or another, on buying a couple of sheep or kids at each halting place, for the use of his own party and the escort. For a few copper coins an abundant supply of fruit and vegetables was obtainable; and as, each night, they spread their rugs under the shade of some overhanging tree, and smoked their pipes lazily after the very excellent meal which Hossein always prepared, Charlie and Tim agreed that they had spent no pleasanter time in India than that occupied by their journey.
Charlie was received with much honor by Ramajee Punt, and was assigned a gorgeous tent, next to his own.
"People in England, Mister Charles," said Tim ............